Mrs Leonard Horatio McCoy MD danced the night away with her husband in her arms she was thrilled beyond the ability of mere words to express her joy.  “I’ve obtained some things that will make tonight very special.”

“Oh.”  Bones asked curiously.

“Let’s just say that it’ll be a night neither of us forget.”  She kissed Leonard softly on the lips and gazed longingly into his deep soulful eyes.  “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Me too.”  Bones replied and returned the kiss.

Janice couldn’t wait to get back to their new shared quarters, not just because it symbolised her married status, but because she wanted to begin making a home for herself and Leonard, a place where they could be happy and comfortable and forty wasn’t too old for a woman to start a family, not these days anyway.  If they were going to make her an admiral in charge of death it was quite ironic that she wanted to bring new life into the universe.  She smiled to herself and rested her head on Leonard’s shoulders and had him hold her even closer to him.  “I love you.”

“I love you too.”  Bones replied.

“Let’s get out of here.”  She whispered.  “They’ll understand.”

Bones nodded.  “Ok, but after we cut the cake.  That’s the most important part.”

“Fine.”  Janice whimpered softly and kissed his neck, gently smooching it with her lips.  “I can’t wait forever though.”

Sharell shot a security guard dead with the stolen phaser.  It was just one more body that stood between herself and her targets: Kirk and Spock.

Scotty tapped his glass with a spoon.  “Ladies and gentlemen can I have you attention?  I’d just like to say  few things.  First of all is to wish the happy couple a long and happy marriage.  I’ve know the admiral for nearly six years now and Dr McCoy almost as long and although the circumstances of their meeting was unusual to say the least I can’t think of another couple that’s more in love so I’d like you to charge your glasses and wish them the best of luck.  Janice and Leonard everyone.”

“Janice and Leonard.”  The room replied.

“They can both rot in hell!”  Sharell snarled and shot at the human male in the skirt as he stepped in front of her target, Kirk, who was wearing a ridiculous white dress.

“Scotty!”  Janice shrieked.

“He’d dead.”  Bones said after a moment.

Spock picked up the cake knife and threw it across the room, hitting the Romulan prisoner in the shoulder, making her drop the phaser.  Then he incapacitated her fully with the Vulcan nerve pinch.  “Guards, take the prisoner to the brig.  Maximum security.”

Janice felt numb, she’d tried to feel sad and cry but there were no tears, only anger and wrath.  All she could ask herself was ‘why?’ again and again.  Leonard sat with her.  He was drinking a glass of saurian brandy.  She was too upset to join him.  Instead she began to undress, she had to get out of this ridiculous dress and into something more practical.  “I’ll go and talk to Spock.”  She said after a moment.  She was wearing just her wedding night lingerie, it was supposed to be the happiest day of her life, but one of her closest friends was dead and all she could think about was how alive she felt.  She wanted Leonard to just told her and tell her things were going to be ok.  But no, she was an admiral, she wasn’t allowed to luxury of human emotions, she had to hold herself together and be the very model of virtue and courage.  She did not feel like either.  She just wanted to feel something, she just wanted to feel alive.  She sat next to Leonard.  “Make love to me.”

“Now?”  Bones asked.

“Please, I just want to feel alive.  I just want to be with you.”

He kissed her and slowly began to undress before they made love.

Spock looked at Sharell sitting in her cell.  “This is a type four security cell.  You won’t escape from here.”

“You should have killed me when you had the chance.”

“Killing you would have been illogical.  Vulcans do not believe in an eye for an eye.”

“That’s your weakness.”

“I do not see how.”

“You show compassion, that is weakness.”

“Compassion is an emotion I am incapable of.  You are alive because you might possess information that Starfleet considers valuable.  We only have the death penalty for one infraction, general order seven.”

Janice lay next to Leonard, she snuggled up next to him, laying her head on his chest and put her hand on his stomach.  She enjoyed their closeness, the intimacy of their two bodies after their frenzied lovemaking.  “Thank you.”  She said softly.  “For understanding.”

“You don’t have to say thank you to me.”  Bones replied.  “I’m your husband, I’ll do anything for you.”

Janice put her other hand on her stomach and wondered if she was fertilised.  Certainly it was the right time of her cycle, she was still producing eggs and wasn’t taken the pregnancy inhibiting drug that Nyota took.  Maybe today really was the start of their family?

The funeral was a ship wide event.  Unlike the marriage the previous day which was an indulgence this was an outpouring of grief that could not be stopped.  Crewmen stood at their posts but in full ceremonial robes.  Captain Spock had deferred the duty of the eulogy to Admiral McCoy on the grounds that as an admiral she was a far more visible figure to give the eulogy.

Janice wore her yellow silk dress robes but it felt gaudy and inappropriate.  “Friends we are gathered to pay tribute to a man that each and every one of us owes their lives to a hundred times over.  Indeed I more than anyone owe him a debt of thanks that words alone cannot express.  However I will say this.  Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott was a man of firm conviction he always had advice to offer when events seemed at their bleakest and he never gave up on anything no matter the situation.  To many he will be remembered as the finest engineer in Starfleet but to us I think he’ll always be remembered as a miracle worker.  We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall all be changed. We therefore commit his body to the deep to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up her dead. God speed Scotty.”

Uhura began to sing Amazing Grace as the photon torpedo containing Scotty’s body was loaded into the firing tube.

Enterprise fired short-range three phaser volleys before the photon torpedo launcher fired once.

Admiral McCoy had set up a temporary office on the ship, she looked into the view screen as she talked in conference to three other admirals.

“Enterprise needs a new engineer and her crew needs at least a fortnight’s rest.  After what they’ve been through they’re exhausted physically and mentally.”

“They’re not your problem anymore Janice.”  Admiral Taleris replied.

“They’re still…family.”  Admiral McCoy replied.  “They just need time to adjust.”

“We need every ship we can use.”

“I agree, but a ship is only as good as her crew and weary crewmen make mistakes.  Besides if Enterprise is to return into the fight then we need time to study the cloaking device, so that we can make more.  Also the ship needs those type seven phasers you promised last year.  We could barely hold our own against the Romulans.  With type sevens we could really take the fight to them.”

“We’ll see what we can do once you get back home Janice.”

“About our prisoner.”  Janice said quickly.  “Do you really think we can get any useful information from her?”

“Now that the Romulans have redeployed their fleet we doubt it, but she may have other information beneficial to the war effort.  The defences of Romulus for one, the maximum output of the Reman shipyards for another.”

“Shame.”  Janice replied.  “I have a list of volunteers as long as my arm to push her out of an airlock.”

Spock was on the bridge when his yeoman brought him a cup of Vulcan tea.  He took the cup from her nervous hands and nodded in thanks, before taking a sip of the hot herbal infusion.  “Steady as she goes helmsman.”

“Aye sir.”  Sulu replied.  “Helm steady as she goes.”

“We’re cleared to dock Captain.”  Chekov said quickly.

“Spaceport welcomes Enterprise back to Earth.”  Uhura added.

Spock raised an eyebrow at the illogical excitement of his junior officers but lowered it again when he remembered that they were human after all.

Admiral McCoy was standing in the forward observation lounge when Spock and her husband entered.  “Isn’t that the most beautiful thing you’ve seen?”  She pointed to the Earth.  “I always get a thrill when we return home.”

“It’s the second most beautiful thing I’m looking at.”  Bones put on the old charm as he walked over to his wife and kissed her.  “Are you looking forward to your new job?”

“Can’t you stay with me?”

“I’m sorry Janice, but with all this death going on out there that’s where I’m needed.”

“I could make it an order.”

“Vulcan couples can spend a whole seven years apart before the onset of pon farr.”  Spock observed.

“We’ll we don’t have any of that cold green blood in our veins.”  Bones replied.

“A fact I am constantly glad of.”  Spock returned the verbal joust.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can, I just can’t leave Spock in the lurch like this and apparently someone made me his first officer.”

“I simply asked for a suitably qualified officer.”

“I put your name forward Leonard.”

“You?  You did that?  What was all this ‘stay with me’ business?”

“I can be an admiral and your wife at the same time.”  Janice replied with a smile.

“Now I have to run a ship for Spock, train Chapel up as my replacement and deal with a lovesick wife who sent me off in the first place?”

“I’ll miss you too Leonard.  At least we’ll have time for our honeymoon before you leave.”

“I should hope so too.”  Bones smiled.

“Admiral, doctor, I shall be on the bridge if you need me.”  Spock left the observation room.

“Ready to start your honeymoon, Mrs McCoy?”  Bones asked.

“More than ready, Mr. McCoy, after you meet my family.”

“Family?”

“The Kirk clan is very strong on family tradition.”

“I’m just an old fashioned country doctor, who am I to argue with a Starfleet admiral?”

Janice giggled.  “You’re my old fashioned country doctor and I wouldn’t have you any other way.  Then we can meet your daughter, I’d like us to be friends.  I’d like her to get to know me.”

“Joanna’s a stubborn one, she got that from me.  But she also got her late mother’s practicality and honesty.”  Bones smiled and escorted his wife back to their quarters.  “I’m sure she’ll welcome the news…eventually.”

Admiral McCoy was wide awake this morning as she entered the prisoner’s cell.

Sharell didn’t acknowledge the arrival of her captor.

“You killed my best friend.”  Admiral McCoy said softly.

“I was trying to kill you.”

“You failed.”

“So what now for the brave and fearless Captain Kirk?”

“Actually I’m married now, and they promoted me.  Captain Kirk doesn’t exist any longer.  I’m Admiral McCoy now.  You’ll be seeing a lot more of me once your interrogation begins.  I hear it’s only a matter of time before Romulus falls.  The Klingon high command estimates three months before your Praetor surrenders.”

“Never.  We’ll die before surrendering.”

“Something the Klingons will be only happy to help you with.”

“I will tell you nothing.”

“You won’t have a choice.  Romulan command already knows of your treachery, we allowed certain documents to fall into their hands, documents that implicate you as the traitor who masterminded the attack on Nelvana III.  They think you’re returning home with us as our honoured guest.”

“Lies.”  Sharell spat.  “They won’t believe it.”

“They already do.”  Admiral McCoy replied.  “They’ve ordered you death by any means necessary.”  She left the Romulan officer to absorb the information, before returning back to her office.

Admiral McCoy waited as the ceremonial pipe was played.  “Permission to disembark, Captain Spock?”

“Permission granted, Admiral.  May I say that serving with you has been an honour?  You have been and always will be my friend.”

Admiral McCoy smiled, shook Spock’s hand and then hugged him.  “Take good care of my ship Spock.”

Spock nodded.  “That was never any doubt that I would.”

Admiral McCoy stepped off the Enterprise and left a lifetime of memories behind.  She stood in the small shuttle pod and it detached itself from the hull of the ship which had been her home by any other name.  Now she had a whole new life in front of her, she was an admiral, she was married and to her inexpressible joy she was pregnant with Leonard’s child.  She hoped the young ensign wouldn’t be put off by her constant grin.